Reducing sheet variations on paper machines is desired in the management of paper production processes. Sheet variations increase sheet breaks, reduce product quality, limit machine speed, extend transition times and reduce production. These variations may have their source in bad valves, poor mixing, faulty transmitters, excessive mechanical vibration, or improperly tuned controllers.
Identifying the causes of such problems is generally a time intensive process done after problems are reported. Many diagnostic procedures need to be completed manually by expert level engineers. Further, the value of results from any given manual diagnostic process may be questionable due to the lack of standard analysis techniques, data mining capabilities and technical visualization tools.